I suppose I could have pie if I wanted, but I am TRYING to be good. I eat next to nothing and manage to maintain my weight, maybe drop a pound or two, and then suddenly gain it all back if I eat ANYTHING. Very frustrating. I cruise the Caribbean in 174 days, and I would like to be able to get back into my own swimsuit. :P

This weekend we saw Snow White and the Huntsman. I feel vaguely dissatisfied with it, as though it could have been a lot better and yet somehow was lacking for me --I mean, it was beautifully shot and there was some amazing acting on most sides, but I found Kristen Stewart mildly irritating as Snow White, and more importantly, it seemed as though the story was rushed in a number of vitally important places, most notably in the all-important area of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I mean, we're hastily introduced and then raced to the next event without being shown how the characters get to be friends, get to fall in love, get ANYWHERE. The only real development of any sort is given to the wildly amazing Evil Stepmother, who really got the short end of the stick in that the movie isn't called "The Evil Queen and some other people."

The Huntsman is the second reason this movie is worth watching, and Chris Hemsworth was so OMG WOW that I'm actually willing to watch Thor now. I think it was the Times reviewer who commented that the movie comes to life when he appears, and I have to agree.

Through the magic of CGI, instead of finding every Little Person actor in Hollywood for dwarfs, instead they cast eight of England's (and America's) finest character actors and digitally shrink them, like Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, and Nick Frost (Simon Pegg's buddy). Yes, eight; of course one has to die tragically (just like Once Upon A Time). Nice seeing Bob Hoskins again.

There are huge sections of slow moving ponderousness that I think could have been cut easily to accommodate some serious character development, especially in the relationship between Snow White and the Huntsman, the supposed title characters. Their forced relationship, culminating in the not-too-surprising "Love's First Kiss," could have been much more natural if we'd seen more of them together than just running from one place to another while being pursued by the Queen's brother and his apparently unkillable troops (the number of fatal axe blows which turned out not to be fatal just HAVE to be attributed to magic). It's also not at all resolved with the ending.

Also, "Prince Charming" aside, the secondary character of William (loyal Duke's son, "red herring love's first kiss") could have been cut completely without any loss at all to the storyline. Getting rid of William, and the weird village of scarred women in the lake, could have brought in the Dwarfs sooner and moved the action along a lot faster and more smoothly, ESPECIALLY between Snow White and the Huntsman.

Also, would like to have seen some way a girl raised ten years in a tower cell is amazingly able to run, wield a sword, etc., with no loss of muscle function... and WHY did the Queen keep her alive again, in the first place? And why couldn't a fully able apparently magical horse carrying only a half-starved slip of a girl BAREBACK outrun a troop of armored horses carrying fully armed men in armor? And...

On the whole, I really enjoyed it... but I didn't, at the same time. Very often I find I'm far more dissatisfied with a movie I should have liked but didn't than in one that just plain sucks. Makes me love Once Upon A Time even more (not to mention perennial favorite The 10th Kingdom).

And Kristen Stewart's waifish looks really annoy me, for some reason. Yes, she's lovely, I suppose, but every time I see her little rabbit teeth I'm reminded of the lines in Peter Pan about his baby teeth... I'm glad I never had any urge to see the Twilight movies.

Otherwise kept busy this weekend. We did at least three miles over the rugged hills at the Squaw Piestewa Peak/Dreamy Draw park. I took some pictures, but haven't uploaded them. We got there at 6 am, because by the time we finished at 8, it was already starting to get very hot -- I believe it topped out at 110 on Saturday; we spent most of the day inside doing basically nothing, but after the hike, hey, that's okay, right? Did not do laundry, but DID steam-clean the floor.

We did get some free passes for the movies, because they had some technical problems which means we didn't see three or four previews -- but it didn't affect the movie at all. Cool beans.

Still want to see MiB3, Avengers, and some of the upcoming ones, Rock of Ages, Brave, and Les Miserables.

SERIOUSLY. Fallen London. Come. Play. Be as addicted as I am. (I'm Wildrider51 there, if you do show up.)

I'm not sure why it's called Dreamy Draw -- it's a gultch that goes down to the river, but it was dammed up years ago and then the freeway went through, and it probably only has water if and when it rains really, really, really, REALLY hard, but it's a really nice place to hike.

They could have saved it with a better Snow White, the more I think on it. She's simply not strong enough to carry that part.

That, and I can't seem to get back to the gym. Work is so nuts I never can tell if I can get to the gym, or if I'll have to go in early to get finished. This morning I chose to sleep in an extra hour, no gym, and of course I will have to get in early tomorrow if I want my unit to catch up at all (part of this is we lost two people last week and two more were sick today).

I'll just keep trying... (I've gone from hovering between 166 to 173 to 188 to 191. WHAT?!?)

Yes, I'm always more disappointed when I expect good things from a film or book and am disappointed. Really bad movies aren't worth the effort, but one that could have been good makes you pick it apart to see what went wrong.